Garden in Winter No. 1246, TTV Photograph

Garden in Winter No. 1233

Some of my photography series come together slowly. I take a lot of photographs and then look at the set and see if there’s a theme that I can pull from the images. There may be trial and error, images included and discarded, multiple shoots of the subject, … Sometimes these series are weeks or months in the making as the ideas and images form in my head & the digital darkroom…

Other series, like this one, Garden in Winter, seem to have a life of their own. I feel like I was just helping the images into being.

Garden in Winter is a series of black & white botanical photographs (with soft sepia tones) taken February 28, 2010 in the JC Raulston Arboretum (Raleigh, NC).

See more of this series in my flickr photostream and my etsy photography shop.

From the wonderful weekend day trip to the beach. Spring please come soon…

polaroids

ocean & seagull. polaroid

Today was heaven.

I’m working a lot of weekends for the day job these days. Blech. So much work to do. Trying to be thankful for the paycheck.

And the cold & gray of February is getting to be a bit much. We’ve had just a couple of snows of a few inches each– which is kind-of a lot for us (Raleigh, NC). Most days have just been blah– cold, gray, yuck– I am so ready for sunshine and warmth!

Today I was off work and the temps were in the 60’s!!! My wonderful husband drove with me to Wrightsville Beach (just outside of Wilmington NC) for the day. It’s about a 2 hour drive– not too bad for a day trip.

I shot lots of polaroids, a few pics with the holga, and a few with the dslr with a lensbaby. I left all the expensive glass in my camera bag… it just didn’t feel like the day for it.

Hope your day was as wonderful as mine.

Dream of the Jetty (no. 9110)

Enamored by the sense of familiar and fleeting and wishing to leave something for the viewer to complete, I am exploring blur in my images. I think my usual (most automatic) style is maybe a bit tight, linear, graphic… I’m trying another path with these soft, dreamlike, out-of-focus and blurred images.

For some stunning work, please see Frederic Desmot’s Sombre series on flickr.

Some black & white photographs from the Water & Sky series:

Rain on the Ocean #2 (No. 8752)

Rain on the Ocean (No. 8762)

Jetty (No. 8721)

See more on my flickr photostream & in my etsy shop.

More work from the Water & Sky series:

Calm (No. 8823)

Water & Sky (No. 8549)

Water & Clouds (No. 9251)

See more on my flickr photostream & in my etsy shop.

Meditation on the Sea (No. 8713)

New work! My Water & Sky series of photographs are from a September 2009 trip to Venice, Florida. See more on my flickr photostream & in my etsy shop.

This work is a little different from my Departure series (the birds). I used a lot of texture layers (digital painting over the photograph) in the bird images. For the new Water & Sky images, I wanted to concentrate on composition & color. There are no texture layers in the Water & Sky series. I haven’t abandoned my texture layers– I just wanted a different set of rules for this series.

Botanical Lily No. 7733

A wonderful year! 2009 was a big year for my art business. My photography sales exploded and I gained confidence that my dream of being a full time artist would one day be possible. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone that helped make that happen.

I was thrilled to contribute to a wonderful cause! N.E.D. (No Evidence of Disease) is a band of six doctors rocking to fight cancer. My art was selected for the cover of their cd!

It was a big year for press and publications for me.

2009 started off with the publication of Art Quilts at Play. The wonderful and talented Jane Davila and Elin Waterston invited me to collaborate on art for their book Art Quilts at Play.

Photojojo named me in their article 20 Photographers Whose Work You Can Actually Afford.

Jen at the Indie Fixx blog invited me to contribute art to her Feed Your Soul free downloadable art project. Feed Your Soul caught the attention of Apartment Therapy and my art was featured in an Apartment Therapy Unplggd post.

Daily Candy featured my photography in a weekend guide.

My digital collage art (the Plans & Diagrams series) was featured in Somerset Digital Studio, Vol 3, August 2009.

And I’m especially thankful to the many bloggers who had kind words about my art:
Poppytalk
The Bright Side Project
The Bowerbird Stories
New Dominion Blues
Magnolia Square
Pangea Handmade
Allyson Meier
Wee Sparrow
Oh Chalet
Moxie Photo and Design
Indie Fixx
The Experts Agree

In 2009, I started a project that’s been on my mind for a couple of years. Wonder Thinking is a blog of business & marketing tips for artists, crafters, indie designers. It’s in its infancy and I’m looking forward to seeing how it grows.

On a more personal note, it was a little bit of a tough year, though there were some silver linings.

My 19-year-old daughter went to Disney in Orlando for 6 months to work a co-op. I missed her terribly, but the bright side was that Fred and I had so much time with just the two of us.

My father’s wife’s adult son was diagnosed with brain cancer. I spent two weeks in Florida with my 84-year-old father while my step-mother went to visit her son. It was the longest time I had spent with my dad since I was a teenager.

My mother had some health challenges. The good news is that she had major surgery in December and is doing very well. The prognosis is good.

All in all, 2009 was a wonderful year for me. I am thrilled with the progress I made in my art and in my art business, though I know I have so much work to do in 2010. :)

How was your 2009? What’s your Year in Review? Did you blog about it? Please leave a link to your blog post in the comments :)

Botanical Lily No. 7820

Thanks to some gentle nudging from Lesley, I’m working again on my Lily series.